Nik Butler: Let’s give up on voting - it’s not worth the tax payers’ time

Published:14:55Thursday 09 May 2013

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Let’s give up voting. It is clearly not worth the the tax payers’ time. Why not just sit back and agree that there is no other party than the incumbent party and they alone should have the right to rule over the choices available to West Sussex.

When nearly 70 percent of the county electorate fail to turn up and vote it feels somewhat self fulfilling to suggest that a vote will change anything.

Let’s just give up on democracy and welcome a return to feudal masters who are the landlords or land owners and clearly have more of a right to choose for us because they can afford the time to do so.

Not one of the successful candidates in last week’s county elections should feel proud or vindicated given the low turnout.

This election was an utter Shelley Fountain of a result and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

All I have is speculation, anecdotal data, as to why so few people voted. A few responses on the popular Horsham Facebook group have me staring at my screen wondering if we didn’t all just fall backwards through a time-warp to an earlier era.

There were a few suggestions that a lack of literature was reason enough not to vote.

If this were true then by my own anecdotal evidence I can say I received over 1,000 votes in the 2011 North Horsham Parish Council elections and a similar number in the elections before that yet I never produced literature or knocked on doors.

On average I got more votes than all the successful candidates for county and I was dealing with far fewer people available to vote; yet we still saw a greater turnout. For those that made the effort, no matter whom you voted for, I am grateful that you made the time but we should not let our responsibilities end at that ballot box.

These elected members of our community work for all including those who failed to vote. The winning candidates made promises in literature and through conversations. We should be keeping that paperwork to hand to closely compare the candidates’ future actions with their promises.

To constantly question and observe the actions of those elected members is the last duty to democracy we have left before apathy of voters in the county sweeps every election into the bin.